The FYP Project Proposal

Hello there and welcome to the first post of many that will encompass this final year project blog page! My name is Robert Anson, a 3rd Year BA Computer Games Art student currently studying at Teesside University in Middlesbrough. This blog covers my work in the games practical project module in which I have to produce an artefact/deliverable product on a subject area of my choice roughly over the course of the next four months or so. So without further ado, let me introduce you to my project idea!

So basically for the first part of the October month we had to come up with a proposal title for our FYP idea. After much consideration on this, this is the title that I decided on:

Robotic Realism in Games

" A Study at implementing real life robotics into Concept Art and 3D Modelling of Robot Designs in Modern Video Games"

I chose this title as robots in games have interested me for a very long time now. I love how sometimes their complex, sometime their simple, but yet both can still look cool and partially functional at the same time. Now I've mainly drawn 2D Concept art of robots mainly for the past few years, and would love to transfer my skills of this properly into 3D programs such as 3DS MAX. This project will give me a chance to do both.

However as the title states, I want to make the robots I design for this particular project to be realistic. I feel that a lot of games make robots in games look cool and awesome, which I love, but not functional, not like they could work in real life. Sure some games try to hit the mark to reflect their art style, such as the recent Call of Duty Advanced Warfare or the giant fire powered behemoths from the Mech Warrior series. But I want to see if I could design a robot or Mech that has a high chance of working in the real world.

To this end I made the proposal fit the purpose of my idea. The next few sections will show you how I aim to achieve this goal, and what steps I've already taken in my pre-production work to date in order to prepare for the work ahead. So some parts of my completed proposal will appear in this entry, whilst others I want to go into a little more depth about.

Research Ideas

Having explained why I want to do this project, and the basics of what i'm making, the next logical step would be to decide on the areas of research to look at. The first obvious step of course would be looking at robots in games! Whilst most of these wouldn't work with the realistic aspect mechanically, I still want to reference them for art styles and potential part influence. I quickly whipped together these two pages of robots, vehicles and mechs from games in which to gain insipiration from:

Some of the titles these robots, mechs and vehicles come from include the Metal Gear Solid games, Sonic titles, the Armored Core series, the Borderlands franchise and MechWarrior to name but a few. 

As you can tell from just the small collective of robots, the games industry has a lot of colourful and cool looking robot in which I can take inspiration from. I've noticed the majority contain lots of blocky shapes, which is pefect for the kind of robot I want to create, which I'll talk about later on in this post. Addtionaly a lot of robots/mechs are based on the human form, with them acting as futuristic gigantic suits of armour for the user. I'd like to emulate this in my own designs, although the bi-pedal aspect of this may not work in a realistic design due to weight and strain consideration on the parts needed. 

For the realistic part of this work I've been looking into real life robots to see how they match up to their video game counterparts. I've found that a lot of them are vastly different and a lot more complex in their inner workings and shapes. I've largely been looking at robotics companies in this regard, which include leading technologists such as Boston Dynamics and Rethink Robotics. Below shows some examples of what I will be researching.

Top left: Kuratas, Top Middle 1: Baxter, Top Middle 2: PETMAN, Top Right: Bigdog, Bottom Right: MARS Rover, Middle 2: Atlas, Middle 1: KUKA Robtics, Arm Bottom Left: ASIMO.

Already from this selection of robots you can see the difference between them and ones found in video games. The inner workings are clearer to see and all of these robots work in real life. However I still find the designs look cool and the variety is clear to see. Although again the humanoid form is still followed, its followed in a way in which the robots can really function, and i'd like to take this on board with my own work. 

However my research doesn't stop there. I aim to look into the workings of car parts, engines, the actual anatomy of these robots, what materials are used and what role they perform, tank parts, and much more. So although there's a fairly wide scope to look at, it can all be brought back into one focused area. 

The Creative Pipeline

So with the research areas selected, the next section from the proposal is the technical overview, or as i'm labeling it, my creative pipeline. This section basically covers how I aim to go about creating the robots I want to make. Here's a screenshot snippet from the proposal itself to give you an idea of how I aim to make this project work:

I've also created a more artistic moodboard of this to give you a visual idea of how I want this progress to work:

In addition to these images, heres a selection of the software I aim to use or explore the potential of throughout the Project:

. CS6 Photshop (Adobe)

. 3DS MAX (Autodesk)

. Mudbox (Autodesk)

. Marmoset Toolbag (Marmoset)

. Crazy Bump

. XNormals

. Quixel Studios

What I aim to produce

So you've seen why I want to do this project, the research i'm looking into, and the work process I aim to use. So what kind of robot do I actually want to make? This extract from my FYP proposal pretty much covers my idea:

To add a little further detail, I want to create a realistic robot that can use interchangeable parts that function in both the construction and military industry, as both require strong, durable machines that can withstand certain conditions. In addition their often shared bulky structure and parts make them ideal for what I want to produce. I aim to make good use of my research and technical processes in order to make the final products of this project possible. 

Also, here's a project plan made in Excel that my proposal required in order to make sure that the project is on track. It takes into consideration term times, holidays and the other modules that I will be doing work on at the same time:

And with that ends the first entry of this FYP blog. For the next entry I will show the pre-production work that I have started on nailing the design that I want to create for my realistic robot.